“Is the crisis over?” is a question I am often asked. “Is the economy coming back?”
My reply is, “I don’t think so. I would prepare for the worst.”

Like most people, I wish for a better future for all of us. Life is better when people are working, happy, and spending money.

The stock market has been going up since March 9, 2009. Talk of “green shoots” fill the air. Yet, in spite of the more positive news, I continue to recommend that people prepare for the worst. The following are some of my reasons:

1. I believe the stock market is being manipulated. I suspect the government, banks, and Wall Street are doing everything they can to keep the market from crashing. Our leaders know that nothing makes the world feel better than a raging bull market.

Do I have any proof that the market is being manipulated? No. I just smell a rat, or a pack of rats. I believe greed, self-interest, arrogance, and fear control the financial markets. I suspect those in charge will do anything to keep us all from panicking… and I don’t blame them. A global panic would be ugly and dangerous.

2. In my view, this global crisis has been caused by the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. Treasury, Wall Street, and the central banks of the world. They caused the problem, profited excessively in doing so, and now profit by being asked to fix the problem.

“So what is it that these big primary dealers see happening (or more importantly, have been told and thus know will happen) in the next two months that leads them to think parking $22 billion of money with Treasury at zero interest will provide them with the best possible return on their investment? Oh, and they bid for nearly 5x as many bonds as were sold too…..

I know, I know, its “a new bull market”, and you should buy stocks, right? We’re going to the mooooooon!

Care to re-examine that thesis given that these huge banks, all of whom make a lot of money trading equities (and commodities) are falling all over themselves to park their money with Treasury at zero interest for the next two months?

PS: If that doesn’t look like a bunch of guys running away from a big jug that has a lit fuse leading into it you’re certifiably insane. You can bet this won’t get mentioned on ToutTV either.”

here’s an excerpt from an article about how bush explained the justification for going to war in iraq. nothing like bible-thumpers going wit their gut:

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”